In pictures: Sisley in England and Wales

The Cliff at Penarth, Evening, Low Tide, 1897. © Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. Acquired with the assistance of The Art Fund and the Gibbs Family Trust, 1993

An exhibition featuring the work of Alfred Sisley - the only Englishman to be included amongst the ranks of the French Impressionists - opens at the National Gallery, in London, on Thursday.

Molesey Weir, Hampton Court, Morning, 1874. © The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

Born in Paris to English parents, Sisley was one of the greatest landscape painters of the 19th century but remains unknown to many people.

Regatta at Hampton Court, 1874. © Photo courtesy of the owner

The National Gallery exhibition, entitled Sisley In England And Wales, focuses on the artist's British landscapes rendered in an Impressionistic style.

Under the Bridge at Hampton Court, 1874. © Kunstmuseum Winterthur. Presented by Dr Herbert and Charlotte Wolfer-de Armas, 1973

Sisley remained a British citizen despite living in France, yet painted in the UK on only two occasions, almost a quarter of a century apart.

Storr’s Rock, Rotherslade Bay, from below the Osborne Hotel, 1897. © Kunstmuseum Bern (G 1851)

Sisley's work from 1874 and 1897 show the artist at two of the most creative moments of his life, according to the gallery, which has brought the two groups of paintings together for the first time.

Sisley's work from the summer of 1874 centres around the Thames, Hampton Court and along the west of the river in the nearby village of East Molesey.

When Sisley returned to the UK in 1897 to Britain to marry his long-term partner Eugenie Lescouzec, he turned to seascapes, capturing the ruggedly beautiful Welsh coastline.

Storr's Rock, Lady’s Cove, Evening, 1897. © Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. Acquired with the assistance of The Art Fund (with a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation)

These landscapes would prove to be among his last paintings as he died in 1899, aged 59.

Sisley In England And Wales is organised by the National Gallery and Amgueddfa Cymru, Cardiff's National Museum Wales, where the exhibition will follow from 7 March to 14 June 2009.